The recent spate of commercial-aircraft tragedies, capped by the Air Algérie jet that went down in Mali on Thursday, can paint an unnerving picture of air travel, yet the fact is that airline crashes are declining world-wide.

Coming a day after a TransAsia Airways turboprop went down while trying to land in bad weather on a remote Taiwanese island, the crash of Air Algérie's aging McDonnell Douglas MD-83 amid severe storm reports has...